Pandemic devastates middle class of restaurant industry

In September when he was hired as a cook at Chicago’s Fulton Market Kitchen, Jeff Danaher asked the chef about his plans for the winter.

“He was like, ‘I’m open four days a week, and I’m trying to go to seven,’ ” recalled Danaher, who had been out of work for months. “It was a huge relief.”

But five weeks later, indoor dining in the city came to a halt. Danaher, who made nearly $50,000 per year before the pandemic and had his pick of positions in recent years, was jobless again.

“After about the second or third week into COVID,” he said, “I got scared for my job security in a way that I never had before in 10 years of cooking.”

In sheer economic terms, few workers have stood more directly in the path of the pandemic than the roughly 10 million people employed by restaurants at the start of the year. The industry shed close to half those jobs in March and

April, and was still down almost 1.5 million as of October.

The winter will likely bring another round of pain: In recent weeks, reservations have dropped substantially in cold-weather states like Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, according to data from OpenTable.

The crisis has forced many of the industry’s working poor to choose between financial ruin and harrowing work conditions. But more so than many other professions, the pandemic has also devastated the industry’s middle class: the thousands of cooks, chefs and servers who can make $35,000 to $85,000 per year in food hubs like Chicago.

For Danaher, 29, the trouble started in early March, when he left his job as a sous-chef at a higher-end casual restaurant in Chicago over concerns about drug use and harassment among the wait staff.

Soon after, the state suspended on-site dining.

Danaher tried to file for unemployment, but the website was overloaded and the phone lines were jammed.

By mid-April, Danaher was inquiring at pizza joints and even a Dunkin’, but got no takers.

Around the same time, the industry was staggering back to life.

By July, the enhanced unemployment benefits, which Danaher started receiving only in May, were about to expire, and his finances were looking grim.

He came down with COVID the next month, though his symptoms were mild.

In late September, Danaher finally landed with Fulton Market Kitchen. He started at $16 per hour. But with infection rates soaring, Illinois ended indoor dining in Chicago before the end of October.

The restaurant closed and the staff was laid off

Not long after, however, Danaher caught a break: A restaurant called Split-Rail asked if he could pick up two shifts per week.

Danaher has now been guaranteed four shifts per week through the end of the year. “I’m incredibly grateful,” he said. “It is enough, but it’s just enough.”

SEBASTIAN HIDALGO/THE NEWYORKTIMES After losing his job earlier this year because of the pandemic, Jeff Danaher now works several shifts a week as a cook at Split-Rail in Chicago.